Thursday, November 3, 2016, Concord University hosted a teleconference with Jonathan Kozol, one of the most prominent authors and speakers on the topic of America’s public education system.
After introductions were made by Sociology professor Dr. Tracy Luff and Concord President Dr. Kendra Boggess, Kozol spoke first on the topic of one of his books Savage Inequalities. As a term, savage inequalities refers to the level of inequality seen between the school districts in low income and wealthy areas. Kozol said as a part of his presentation that “low-income children have far greater needs than children of privilege,” and pointed out that part of the problem is the reliance on local taxes to fund education. This is directly responsible for the creation of such savage inequalities where in some school districts there is only three or four thousand dollars paid per student, while more schools in more affluent districts may receive ten $10,000 per student. In response to a question about child poverty in America, Kozol said that fixing the method by which education is funded may help to address that problem. His solution? “Fund the education of every American child from the real wealth of our nation: the federal government.”
Kozol also discussed the recent resurgence of racial segregation that is seen in schools, where Black and Hispanic students are “isolated intellectually” and “physically segregated,” an occurrence which he said could be traced all the way back to shortly after desegregation, with the Rehnquist court. Although the Supreme Court ruling in Brown v. the Board of Education during the Warren court was a landmark win for desegregation in public schools, it has slowly been undermined over the years following. During the Rehnquist court in the 1980s, ballots became far more conservative, he said, and the court ordered the cancellation of many desegregation programs. This led to a slow resurgence of segregation in schools, and today it is at its worst.
When asked about the Chartist movement and its impact on education in America, Kozol noted that along with having bad reputations for humiliating and shaming students who test poorly, charter schools are also notoriously the most segregated.
One of the final topics that Kozol approached before taking questions was what he called the “pathological mania of obsessive testing” in the American school system. He said that standardized testing narrows the breadth of skills being taught, is squeezing the arts and the humanities out of public education, and keeps the fun out of active learning – something that engages children in their education. According to Kozol, these standardized tests also suppress the ability of children to ask questions and ignore the potential of low-income children, since standardized exams tell teachers absolutely nothing about the students or the areas in which they may need the most help. Kozol believes that diagnostic testing – that is to say exams created and administered by teachers based on material they have taught – would be far more helpful than the standardized testing in place today. Standardized testing has created an educational system with a dangerous emphasis on competition “between schools, between teachers, and between children in those schools.”
“Kozol was engaging and insightful,” said Junior Psychology major Rebekah Weaver. “He’s firm in what he believes is the best way to fix the American education system and the inequalities that have become inherent within it, but the data supports him and strengthens the conviction with which he spoke. I loved hearing him speak and learning more about some of the intricacies and nuances within our system of public education.”
Overall, Kozol’s presentation was highly informative, serving to emphasize the important role that American citizens have in choosing leadership that will serve them and their needs and interests.